On this day: October 4

Work begins on Mount Rushmore, Sputnik is launched into space, the pope visits America for the first time, Janis Joplin is found dead of an overdose, all on this day.

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Gregory R Todd/Wikimedia Commons

1957: Russia's Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, is launched. The satellite would set off the Cold War-era "Space Race" between America and Russia.

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